Andrew & Caroline Wickens
Joint Methodist Church and CMS Mission Partners
St Paul’s United Theological College Limuru, Kenya
August 2002
As well as the usual fare of Greek, Caroline shared in leading a course on feminist theology, with three women participants and 28 men. This had its moments, such as heated class discussion about the difference between the Virgin Birth and the process of artificial insemination by donors …. but raised fundamental issues for the Kenyan context. Does a husband have the right to ‘discipline ‘ his wife if she upsets him? Are girl children less valuable than boys? Does it matter that Jesus was a male human being? (in a context where not all dioceses ordain women). We didn’t come up with definitive answers, but we faced some very big questions.
Andrew’s courses were more diverse. In Philosophy of Religion he opened up discussions on African beliefs in the world of spirits – very much part of the culture of many of our students. Also on the mystery of evil, in a setting where so many people are looking for assurance and certainty. In his doctrine class it was not spirits but the Holy Spirit that featured in discussion. Issues such as baptism and conversion displayed often very different points of view. Andrew also taught a new course on Biblical sociology. Traditional African Societies are in many ways much more like the villages of ancient Israel than modern Britain. There is a great sense of recognition here of the Old Testament especially. In Britain we are unlikely to get very excited about tribal or family patterns from 3,000 years ago, but students here can make very ready connections with their own lives.
The new semester will bring new challenges. As well as teaching commitments, Andrew will have to take responsibility for looking after the college’s ageing computers and chasing away the viruses, in the absence of a colleague who usually attends to this. This is a crucial activity in a context where office computers are not automatically replaced every two years. The College is expecting in the near future a large shipment of donated (and slightly less mediaeval) PCs.
Caroline continues to enjoy supervising her post-graduate students, partly because she learns so much herself in the effort to keep up with their research into many different aspects of the New Testament in the light of the current Kenyan situation. She is also looking forward to involvement in a different post-graduate course, aimed at those who undertake pastoral care of people with HIV/AIDS. This course, supported by various institutions both locally and in the UK, is one initiative among many seeking to respond to the scourge of this virus, which is estimated to affect 14% of the population and to kill 600 – 700 Kenyans a day. Our particular aim is to resource those who are involved in front-line care, through offering health-based courses and enabling them to develop theological and spiritual resources for their own support in this hugely demanding ministry.